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Episode 704: Brothers In Arms
Notes Synopsis Michael tries to learn about Burke’s underground network; Fiona and Madeline must frame a corrupt Russian bureaucrat for treason. Spy Facts When you work undercover, the first question you have to ask yourself, is "how far are you willing to go to accomplish the mission?" The trick is to make the people you're working for believe that those lines don't exist. That you're willing to do absolutely anything for them, no matter how horrible. The only way to get through a mission like that, is to remind yourself that to stop a monster, sometimes you have to pretend to be one. When you're planning to smuggle a listening device into a facility where you know you'll be searched, choosing where to hide it could be a life or death situation. Not only do you want to conceal it in a place no one will think to look, but also in a place no one will want to look. When an undercover cop wears a wire, it's often more for safety than for intelligence gathering. If the op goes bad, his support team can pull him out. For a spy wearing a wire, those priorities are reversed. What matters is the intelligence. If the op goes bad, your support team just listens to you die. The trick to making someone look like a spy, is to strike just the right balance between trade-craft that's good enough to be convincing, but bad enough to be detected. One of the easiest techniques, makes use of a cell phone GPS. If you know the phone is monitored, you can lay down a digital trail all over town and it will lead straight to your target. Standard protocol for leaving a covert base is to destroy anything of intelligence value. Computer hard-drives are smashed, documents are shredded or burned. Bottom line, if you need to convince someone they found an abandoned CIA operations center, you gotta make a serious mess. But of course, none of that will do much good if you get caught making that mess. Ironically, one of the best times to go after enemies, is just after they think they've beaten you. No one expects an attack when they're still basking in the glow of victory. The key is to use the opponent's over-confidence. The more comfortable they are that they can handle any threat, the more likely it is they'll leave themselves vulnerable. Full Recap Previously on Burn Notice: Michael was sent to infiltrate the network of a terrorist in the Dominican Republic named Randall Burke. Burke turned around and kidnapped another terrorist name Rafael Serrano, saying Serrano has information that's valuable to the people Burke works for. Michael didn't know Burke worked for anyone and now wants to know more. "Brothers in Arms:" Michael is on a mission from Burke, in some jungle setting at night. Michael is reluctant but proceeds with Burke's orders. Michael sneaks into the back yard of a mansion while Burke continues to interrogate Serrano, who is refusing to talk. Michael, at the same time, is sneaking into the mansion. Serrano refuses to talk, but Burke shows him a live video feed from a camera on Michael's forehead. Michael has slipped into the room of Serrano's sleeping young daughter and is pointing a gun at her. Serrano tearfully begs Burke not to hurt her a conversation Michael can also hear through an earpiece. Serrano finally gives Burke the location of a woman who Serrano helped kidnap for some Russians she's in a factory or warehouse in Cuba. Burke tells Serrano he "made the right choice." Burke assures Serrano he won't hurt his daughter and Michael drops the gun. Serrano says the Russian are going to kill him and Burke says they'll only chase him if he's alive, then hands him a gun and a single bullet. Michael calls Agent Strong and tells him he can't do this mission much longer. He's still shaken from the previous night and is pouring himself a stiff drink. Strong reminds Michael his ass is on the line if the mission fails. Michael stops short of taking the drink and hurls the bottle across the room, smashing it on a wall. Michael meets up with Sam and Jesse in Cuba. Burke shows them the heavily guarded warehouse where the woman is being kept. Burke is short on details about the woman or how to get in and out of the building. Michael tells Burke not to worry. Sam says it's impossible and Jesse agrees, but Michael thinks they might be able to get the Russians to bring her out instead of trying to break in. Jesse remembers he knows a guy at the Russian consulate in Miami. He suggests they kidnap the guy and make the Russians think he's spying for the U.S. and Michael goes to the Russians to make them think the guy is a traitor. Michael says he'll call Fi to help in Miami. Fi tells Michael she can't drop everything when he calls. He apologizes and says he shouldn't have broken his promise that things were going to change. He says, "You deserve better" and adds, "I'm glad you have that now." Fi asks what he needs. We next see Fi and Maddie show up at the Russian consulate's home early to wait for their guy. Maddy asks Fi if Carlos would've been a better choice but Fi says she couldn't' tell Carlos what she was doing. Ivan (JB Blanc) shows up and Fi goes over to kindly ask him for help. She winds up having to pull her gun on him. To plant a listening device, Sam cuts Michael's bicep and puts some gauze over it. The gauze has the listening device in it. Michael walks right up to the Russian warehouse and introduces himself without hesitation as Michael Westen, saying he needs to speak to the boss. Michael is escorted into a holding cell and the boss shows up. It's a guy named Vladimir of the GRU. Michael says he needs protection. He says the CIA found him in Cuba and he was shot at during his escape. He says the CIA is going to raid the warehouse. Vladimir says that's impossible. Michael gets Vladimir's attention when he says the CIA is after a kidnapped girl named Sonya. Michael says he can help if he, Sonya and Vladimir can leave the warehouse through a planed escape route. Vladimir hits Michael in the face and calls him a liar, but Michael says the fact that he came and knocked on the door should be evidence of a leak. He says the guy in Miami is the source. Vladimir is intrigued. Fi and Maddy have Ivan in the back of a van and are purposely trying to get the Russians to track his movements through his cell phone. She's dumping documents about town so it will look like Ivan left documents sitting in a trash can for his contact. Maddy, after giving Ivan some water, tells him she's sorry for putting him through this but he's "helping someone." Maddy looks away for a moment and Ivan who is handcuffed kicks her. He manages to open the back of the van and make a run for it. Fi watches as he crosses a busy street and he smiles back at her. But the smile doesn't last. Maddy caught up with him in the van and drove up just in time for him to smack into the side of it. She tells him she hopes he's had his fill of water for the day, because it's the last he's going to get, and pours the rest of the bottle out on the street. Meanwhile, Michael is getting his share of water as three burly Russians water board him while Vladimir watches. Vladimir wants to know why Michael is really there, still insisting that Michael is lying. Vladimir says no one in the Miami consulate would know about this and tells the men to continue. Just as the guys start again, another man runs up with a note for Vladimir. It's about a missing GRU agent in Miami who has been leaving documents around and made a phone call to a hotel in Cuba. Vladimir is still somewhat skeptical but Michael tells him they can get out before the raid happens. Vladimir asks for an operations team immediately. Burke watches as GRU agents head for the hotel. Sam and Jesse are there trying to make a mess serious enough to make it look like an abandoned CIA headquarters. Cuba cops show up early, though, and Jesse and Sam have to take their only escape route a jump from a few stories up down onto the roof of a tour bus padded with luggage. Michael is still being held in the warehouse, and enjoying a piece of bread. He asks a guard for some water "but not too much," joking about the previous water boarding and the guard spits at Michael's feet. Vladimir comes in and tells the other men to leave. He says the CIA agents escaped the hotel. Michael tells Vladimir that there must be a leak in his own compound because the CIA team must have been tipped off about the GRU agents being on their way. Burke calls Sam and Jesse and tells them that Vladimir is still not believing the story about a traitor among his own men, so they have to kidnap one of the agents that went to the hotel and make it look like one of them sold Vladimir out. Sam and Jesse return to the hotel and see a few of the agents loading up some of the smashed hard drives and shredded documents still jubilant over what they think was a victory for them. After some of the men go back inside, Jesse and Sam casually walk up to the one remaining, sneak up from behind and toss him into the trunk of the car he was loading. They drive away in the car. Fi forces Ivan to give her his bank accounts and passwords, threatening him with dropping him off at the Russian consulate where they will shoot him on the spot. He asks if he can just send a letter to his girlfriend. Fi agrees and starts taking his dictation. She feels bad when he gets to the part about not being able to pay for her nursing school because the money in the account was for her. Fi says she'll send $500 to Cuba and put the rest in an account for Eva. Ivan thanks her and asks her to write "goodbye" to Eva for him. In Cuba, Michael is getting his handcuffs removed and is asked to see Vladimir, who tells him that one of his GRU agents disappeared with all the materials from the CIA hotel room. Vladimir asks Michael if his escape route will work and Michael assures him it will. Vladimir says the prisoner is "top priority" for Moscow and that Michael will be rewarded if this goes well. Michael is taken to a cell, where Sonya (Alona Tal) is laying motionless on a thin mat with a hood over her head. Meanwhile, Vladimir is on the phone hearing what he thinks is great news and he tells his men to leave Sonya where she is. Jesse, Sam and Burke are hearing all of this through the listening device and don't like the sound of it. Vladimir says a Russian submarine is off the coast of Cuba and being diverted there. He orders the doors to all be locked. Michael is now alone in the room with Sonya's cell and a guard. The place is more fortified than it already was but Burke insists they still have a mission. Burke thinks up a new idea, saying he isn't going to leave Michael or Sonya behind. He is going to bring several pounds of high explosives right into the warehouse by pretending to be Michael's CIA contact. Once he's taken to Michael and Sonya, he'll blow through a wall and Jesse and Sam can pick them up. Sam, suddenly apparently impressed by Burke's loyalty and determination to get Michael out alive, goes along. Burke comes right up to the entrance and introduces himself as a friend of Michael Westen who wants to see Vladimir. Jesse and Sam watch from afar. Jesse says he admires Burke's leading from the front, but Sam is still a little skeptical about how the plan works. Vladimir comes to meet Burke, who is brought into the warehouse by guards. Burke says he's been waiting at the marina for Vladimir, Michael and Sonya, but Vladimir tells him reinforcements are on the way. Burke then tells him he's unemployed from U.S. government service and wants to defect offering up his CIA-issued laptop with many access codes that will change once the CIA realizes he and it have gone missing. Vladimir agrees to bring him further into the warehouse. He comes into the room where Michael is being kept with Sonya. Burke asks Vladimir to give he and Michael a minute. Vladimir agrees and all the men leave. Burke says he'll take care of the guards outside if Michael can handle the guards in the room and get Sonya out. Burke says he can't explain how it's all going to happen, but makes sure Michael will protect Sonya and get her out, saying "she is the key to everything." Michael promises he can get her out. Burke shakes Michael's hand and says "it's been an honor." It seems like a final goodbye. Burke walks down the hall with Vladimir and several guards and takes the laptop out, saying he thinks it's important that Vladimir see what he has right away (we know the laptop is full of explosives). Burke opens the laptop and Vladimir's jaw drops. Burke smiles and the next thing we see is a wall being blown out from inside. Jesse and Sam see the commotion and take their cue, and Michael takes care of one of the guards in his room, pulling that guard's gun and forcing him to open Sonya's cage. Jesse and Sam wait by the hole in the wall while Michael is inside, carrying Sonya slumped over his shoulder. One of the guards on the roof starts firing at Sam and Jesse somehow missing them despite firing several shots and Michael emerges, explaining that Burke "didn't make it." They get into the car and speed away, still under heavy gun fire from the guards outside. Fi and Maddy release Ivan and warn him that GRU agents all over Miami are looking for him so he'd better leave town. There is a bus waiting for him. He asks about the letter to Eva and they say they didn't send it. Instead, they got Eva a bus ticket, as well, and some new identities for both of them and some brochures for nursing schools in Iowa. Maddy says it's hard to explain, but they just "like the idea of a spy getting a chance to start over." Fi tells Ivan to go before she changes her mind. He does. Michael and Sam are heading through some brush to check on their 30-foot ride out of Cuba while Jesse waits with the car and Sonya, who is still unconscious. Michael calls Jesse and says they're on their way back when he hears Jesse getting blindsided. Michael and Sam run back only to find Jesse face down on the ground, Sonya gone and her chains on the ground. She did it and now she's gone. Sam asks what they're going to do now. "Find her," Michael says. Cast *Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen *Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona Glenanne *Bruce Campbell as Sam Axe *Coby Bell as Jesse Porter *Sharon Gless as Madeline Westen Major Events Trivia Continuity Errors